Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Members of NGO Monitor, an Israel-based research institute, signed an open letter on Sunday calling for an independent investigation of The New York Times following its publishing of an opinion column alleging Israeli authorities sexually assaulted Palestinian security prisoners. The column, penned by Nicholas Kristof, drew a flurry of criticism worldwide, culminating in the recent United Nation’s decision to place Israel on a list of parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict. The members of NGO Monitor’s Inter...
(JNS) — No rabbinic seminary has a future in the United States if it ordains anti-Zionist clergy, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a Reform congregation in New York City, said at the third “Re-Charging Reform Judaism” conference. “We have an obligation to discuss what we mean by ‘Zionism,’” the rabbi, who is president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said in a keynote address opening the two-day conference on Wednesday. “We have an interest to establish the biggest possible tent. I am a liberal plurali...
(JNS) — Israel controls approximately 60% of the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. He added that he has instructed the Israel Defense Forces to expand that figure to 70% as part of its ongoing campaign against Hamas. Speaking at the Jordan Valley Conference, Netanyahu said Israel was continuing to increase pressure on the terrorist organization nearly three years after the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. “Israel controls 60 percent of the Gaza Strip,” the prime minister said. “My directi...
(JNS) — Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei threatened the United States and Israel, calling on Muslims worldwide to chant for the destruction of the two nations during the upcoming Hajj pilgrimage. “In various parts of Iran and the world, and continuing well beyond these blessed days, ‘Death to America” and ‘Death to Israel’ shall become the common chants of the Islamic ummah [nation],” Khamenei said in a written statement issued on the occasion of the Hajj and published in English by the semi-official ISNA news agency. The ayatollah cal...
(JNS) — During a visit with Defense Minister Israel Katz to the IDF’s 96th Division along Israel’s eastern border on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel’s enemies are seeking to infiltrate the country. “We take into account that our enemies want to invade the State of Israel, and therefore we rely on you,” Netanyahu told commanders and soldiers stationed in the area. Netanyahu and Katz toured one of the upgraded “water-line outposts” along the Jordan frontier and received briefings from IDF officers on effort...
(JNS) - Six men assaulted an Israeli man in London on early on Monday morning after hearing him speak Hebrew on the phone, he told police and the media. The Israeli, Shalev Ben Yakar, 22, also complained to police about the beating that he said the six men gave him outside the Solomon Hotel in Golders Green, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on Monday. "[They caught me] completely off guard. I was not ready. I saw [them] coming [toward] me, and I had a suspicious feeling [about them], but...
(JNS) — Israeli Minister of Transport and Road Safety Miri Regev on Monday convened an initial discussion regarding the recent hantavirus outbreak, her office told JNS. Regev instructed her ministry to prepare measures aimed at preventing the virus from spreading into the Jewish state through border crossings or airports, according to the statement. A special team headed by ministry Director-General Moshe Ben-Zaken will coordinate with the Health Ministry on the issue. “At the moment there is no concern, but we are preparing all systems in adv...
(JNS) — Canadian border authorities interrogated and refused to let into the country the director of the Muslim Association of Britain, who had denied the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacres in Israel. Immigration officials in Montreal had questioned Anas Altikriti, a dual citizen of the U.K. and Iraq, at Montreal’s main airport for 11 hours before escorting him to a London-bound airplane, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported on Wednesday. Altikriti had planned to speak at a Muslim Association of Canada convention in Toronto on May 16-18, the r...
(JNS) — George Deek, Israel’s newly appointed special envoy to the Christian world, said Wednesday that Christians in the Jewish state “are not just surviving — we are thriving.” In a video message posted to X, Deek, an Arab-Israeli diplomat from a “Christian family that has lived in this land for centuries,” said his role was to strengthen ties with Christian communities worldwide. “My mission is simple, to speak the truth, to listen carefully, and to deepen friendship between Israel and Christian communities everywhere,” Deek said. “In Is...
(JNS) — Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday accused the Palestinian Authority of waging “war” against the Jewish state, as he confirmed that International Criminal Court prosecutors had submitted a secret request for an arrest warrant against him. “The prosecutor submitted a request for arrest warrants. Whether they will actually be issued or not, we do not know; they also do not want us to know; this is part of the tactic,” Smotrich told reporters at a press conference in Jerusalem. “What is certain is that the Palestinian...
(JNS) — Israel on Monday barred entry to American YouTuber Tyler Oliveira, known for viral videos that claimed Jews had “invaded” parts of New York and New Jersey. Oliveira was stopped at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and deported back to the United States, Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli confirmed to JNS on Tuesday. “It was my decision,” Chikli said. “We have a direct line of communication with the Population and Immigration Authority, and when we submit the name of a person or org...
(JNS)— Philadelphia Democrats nominated Chris Rabb, a state representative who has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and supports a Palestinian “right of return,” in Tuesday’s primary to succeed retiring Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.). With no Republican running in Pennsylvania’s heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District, Rabb is widely expected to win the general election and join the U.S. House in January 2027. He received 44.3 percent of the vote in the four-candidate race, defeating Sharif Street, a Democratic state senator...
(JNS) — At sundown on Thursday, May 21, Jews around the world will start the two-day holiday (which lasts only one day in Israel) of Shavuot. Also known as the Festival of Weeks because it marks the completion of the counting of the Omer period — which is 49 days long, or seven weeks of seven days—Shavuot is one of the Jewish calendar’s shalosh regalim pilgrimage holidays. Unlike the other two pilgrimage festivals — Passover, which is marked through the retelling of the Exodus story at the se...
(JNS) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated on Wednesday Washington’s stance that Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon, adding that he would welcome a more active role from China in helping resolve the Mideast conflict. “Iran is an example of a bilateral issue that is irreconcilable. Their clerical regime wants a nuclear weapon and the world, led by President [Donald] Trump, says that can’t happen,” Rubio told Fox News aboard Air Force One while en route to Beijing to join the U.S. delegation and the president for the first diplomat...
(JNS) — Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday lashed out at those who mark so-called Nakba Day, screenshotting an image from a video posted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “The Nakba was the result of the Arab rejection of the U.N. Partition Plan [of 1947] and decision to launch war to annihilate the State of Israel,” the ministry tweeted. It added, “You can’t start war, openly vow to ‘throw the Jews into the sea,’ and then pretend being the victim of the conflict you started. The real forgotten victims are the 850,000 Jewish refugees ex...
(JNS) — Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday accused The New York Times of publishing “one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press.” “In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused,” the MFA tweeted, referencing the Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT columnist who wrote “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” The opinion peace alleged that, despite an absence of evidence, the Jewish state utilizes sexual violence...
(JNS) — Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, on Saturday condemned a pro-Palestinian march in New York as “blatant antisemitism disguised as activism,” saying demonstrators chanted slogans calling for Israel’s destruction and to “Globalize the intifada” under a “Nakba Day” banner. In a video posted on X, a woman is heard leading the crowd in the slogan “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” appearing to condone acts of violent terrorism directed against Israeli civilians and soldiers. According to Getty im...
(JNS)— Israel is in “full coordination” with Washington on Iran and is preparing for all possible scenarios, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday as he convened his Security Cabinet. “We are maintaining continuous contact with our friends in the United States,” said Netanyahu according to his office, adding that he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump “almost on a daily basis. My people and his people are in daily contact as well, including today. And I will also speak with President Trump later tonight.” There were “no...
JNS) — Prospects for peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians hinge on the Palestinian Authority ending its “pay-for-slay” program, which provides monthly stipends for life to convicted terrorists and the families of attackers, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. “If you want reconciliation, peace, partnership, pay-for-slay must stop,” a ministry spokesperson said in a video posted to X, arguing that the payments “reward terror and incentivize future terror. “It’s the opposite of educating for peace,” the spokesman...
(JNS) — The Iranian regime’s response to the latest U.S. proposal to end hostilities was “totally unacceptable,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives.’ I don’t like it — totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported earlier on Sunday that Tehran’s response to Washington’s plan had been submitted to Pakistani mediators. According to the regime outlet, Iran’s response sought to end “the war in the re...
(JNS) - A rare sight, a halo surrounding the sun, was seen in Israel's northern skies on Saturday, May 2. The striking halo was reportedly spotted by residents in the city of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee Panhandle and at Shavei Zion beach near Nahariya in the Western Galilee. Dr. Amir Givati, director of the Israel Meteorological Service, told Ynet that the phenomenon is the result of high-altitude clouds typical of heatwave conditions. Due to their high altitudes of four to five miles in the...
(JNS) - Israeli journalist Amit Segal shared video footage on Monday, May 4, showing rare May snowfall on Mount Hermon, noting that it marked the first snowfall on the mountain's upper slopes this late in the season in 15 years. A clip posted to his X account showed the popular northern resort blanketed in white as an unseasonably cold front swept through the region....
(JNS) — U.S. Central Command said early on Monday that it would begin supporting “Project Freedom” to ensure the free flow of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global trade route. The operation, directed by U.S. President Donald Trump, aims to safeguard merchant vessels transiting the strait, through which U.S. Central Command noted that roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and significant volumes of fuel and fertilizer pass. CENTCOM said the mission will include guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraf...
(JNS) — Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s book, When We See You Again, has reached the top spot on The New York Times nonfiction hardcover best sellers list, a week after its national publication. Hamas terrorists executed Goldberg-Polin’s son Hersh Goldberg-Polin in cold blood in an underground tunnel in Gaza, 330 days after he was taken hostage from the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. The book is “a searing portrait of a mother’s grief and strength in the wake of unthinkable tragedy,” publisher Random House writes. Goldberg-Polin is an Ameri...
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Monday that the United States must moderate its demands on the Islamic Republic, warning that Washington “cannot use the language of threats and force.” He said “our priority is to end the war,” urged the “other side” to abandon “excessive demands” and reiterated Tehran’s claim that it is the “guardian and protector” of the Strait of Hormuz. “The international community must hold the United States and the Zionist regime accountable for imposing insecurity on this waterway and for creati...
